Branded vs Non-Branded Google Shopping Queries: How to Measure the Split

If you manage Google Shopping campaigns, you already know that search terms drive everything. But not all search terms carry the same intent or the same economic value. The split between branded and non-branded queries is one of the most telling indicators of your Shopping account's health, yet most advertisers never measure it. They look at total ROAS, total conversions, and total spend without asking a basic question: how much of this performance is coming from people who already knew my brand name?

This guide shows you how to classify your Shopping search terms into branded and non-branded buckets, how to measure what percentage of your spend and revenue falls into each, and what to do with the results. If you want to find where incremental growth actually lives in your Shopping account, this is where you start.

What Branded vs Non-Branded Means in Shopping

The concept is simple. A branded query is any search term that contains your brand name, your store name, or your proprietary product line names. A non-branded query is everything else.

If your store is called "NordicGear" and someone searches for "nordicgear hiking boots," that is branded. If they search for "waterproof hiking boots men," that is non-branded. The searcher in the second case has no idea your store exists. They are looking for a product category and Google decided to show your Shopping ad.

A few edge cases worth noting:

• Competitor brand names: If someone searches for "Patagonia rain jacket" and your ad appears, that is a non-branded query for you (and a branded query for Patagonia). You are capturing competitor traffic.
• Product line names: If you sell a proprietary line called "AlpineMax" and someone searches for "alpinemax jacket," that is branded for you, even though they did not type your store name. These product-specific brand terms still indicate prior brand awareness.
• Retailer names: If you are a retailer selling third-party brands, queries with those brand names (e.g., "Nike running shoes") are non-branded for you. The shopper is looking for the product brand, not your store.

The distinction matters because branded and non-branded queries represent fundamentally different stages of the buying process. Branded searchers have already done the hard part: they know you exist. Non-branded searchers are up for grabs. You are competing for them against every other merchant in the auction.

Why This Split Matters More Than You Think

Here is the uncomfortable truth that most Shopping campaign managers avoid: branded queries convert at 2–5x the rate of non-branded queries, and they typically carry a lower CPC because fewer competitors bid on your brand terms. This means a large chunk of your reported ROAS might be coming from people who were going to buy from you anyway.

That does not mean branded traffic is worthless. Showing up for branded Shopping queries protects you from competitors bidding on your brand. It also gives the shopper a richer experience with product images and prices right in the search results. But it does mean your ROAS numbers might be telling an incomplete story.

Consider two accounts with the same 600% overall ROAS:

• Account A: 70% branded traffic with 900% branded ROAS, 30% non-branded traffic with 200% non-branded ROAS. Blended: 600%.
• Account B: 25% branded traffic with 1,000% branded ROAS, 75% non-branded traffic with 470% non-branded ROAS. Blended: 600%.

Account B is in a much stronger position. It generates most of its revenue from new customer acquisition (non-branded) at a healthy return. Account A is living off brand recognition and struggling with non-branded profitability. If Account A's branded volume ever dips (say, a competitor launches a brand awareness campaign), the overall numbers will fall fast.

This is why brand performance analysis at the search term level is not a nice-to-have. It is the only way to know whether your Shopping growth is sustainable.

The Problem: Shopping Doesn't Segment This for You

In Google Search campaigns, you can set brand restrictions and get automatic branded/non-branded segmentation in your reports. Shopping campaigns offer nothing like this. Google's Shopping campaign reports show you individual search terms and their metrics, but there is no built-in filter for "branded" or "non-branded." You get a flat list of thousands of queries and it is up to you to classify them.

This is a real problem at scale. An active Shopping account can easily generate 10,000+ unique search terms per month. Manually going through a spreadsheet and tagging each one is not realistic, and it needs to happen on a recurring basis because new terms appear daily. The Search Terms report in Google Ads gives you the raw data, but the classification layer is missing.

Performance Max makes this even harder. PMax campaigns report limited search term data, showing only terms that meet a minimum threshold. You might be spending 40% of your budget through PMax and have no visibility into whether those queries are branded or not. If you are running PMax alongside Standard Shopping, the branded/non-branded picture gets murky fast.

How to Classify Your Search Terms

Building Your Brand Terms List

Start with the obvious: your brand name and your store name. Then expand outward:

• Common misspellings: If your brand is "Schiesser," people will search "scheisser," "schieser," and "shiesser." Look at your actual search terms report to find the variations real shoppers use.
• Abbreviations: "North Face" vs "TNF," "Under Armour" vs "UA." Include both.
• Proprietary product lines: "Flyknit" for Nike, "Boost" for Adidas. If you own the product name and it signals brand awareness, include it.
• Domain variations: Some shoppers type "nordicgear.com" or "nordic gear store" into Google. These are branded.
• Compound terms: "nordicgear boots" and "boots nordicgear" should both match. Use case-insensitive substring matching, not exact match.

A practical starting list for most brands has 5–15 terms. You do not need hundreds. The goal is to catch the terms that signal prior brand awareness, not to build an exhaustive dictionary.

The Classification Logic

Once you have your brand terms list, classification is straightforward: if a search term contains any of your brand terms (case-insensitive), it is branded. Everything else is non-branded.

In SQL or a script, this looks like a simple LIKE '%brandterm%' check across your terms list. The trick is applying it consistently across your entire search terms dataset and re-running it whenever you update your brand terms list or pull new data. Manual Excel filtering works for a one-time analysis but falls apart for ongoing tracking.

Tools like SKU Analyzer's Search Terms page let you define your branded keywords once and automatically classify every search term going forward. The classification runs server-side against your full search terms dataset, so you get pre-aggregated branded vs non-branded metrics without touching a spreadsheet.

Measuring the Split: Spend, Clicks, Conversions

Once your terms are classified, you want to answer four questions:

1. What percentage of spend goes to branded vs non-branded? This tells you how much of your budget is defending existing brand traffic versus acquiring new customers.
2. What percentage of clicks are branded vs non-branded? Compare this to the spend split. If branded clicks are 30% of volume but only 15% of spend, branded CPCs are much cheaper (expected).
3. What percentage of conversions come from each? The revenue split reveals how dependent you are on brand recognition for sales.
4. What is the ROAS for each bucket? This is the most actionable number. It tells you how efficiently each type of traffic converts.

Here is what a typical analysis looks like in practice. Say you pull 30 days of search terms data and classify it:

This table tells a clear story. Branded traffic converts at nearly double the rate, costs 24% less per click, and delivers 856% ROAS versus 325% for non-branded. The blended 495% ROAS looks solid, but strip out branded and the non-branded performance is decent but not spectacular. If you are optimizing toward a 500% ROAS target, you are only hitting it because branded is carrying the average.

For a deeper look at how to analyze Shopping performance metrics in context, see the Shopping Ads Analytics hub.

Benchmarks by Business Maturity

What is a "normal" branded vs non-branded split? It depends almost entirely on your brand's awareness level. Here are rough benchmarks based on what I have seen across dozens of accounts:

These are rough ranges, not targets. A new DTC brand at 10% branded is doing fine. An established retailer at 65% branded should investigate whether their Shopping campaigns are doing meaningful customer acquisition or just recapturing existing demand.

The trend matters more than the absolute number. If your branded share is increasing quarter over quarter, your brand awareness is growing (good) or your non-branded campaigns are losing steam (bad). If branded share is decreasing, you are either scaling non-branded well or losing brand visibility. Context determines interpretation.

Branded vs Non-Branded ROAS: What to Expect

Across the accounts I have managed, these performance ratios are typical:

• Branded ROAS: 600–1,200%. Branded shoppers convert at high rates with low CPCs, so the return is naturally high.
• Non-branded ROAS: 200–500%. This is the harder traffic to convert. These shoppers are comparison shopping and may never have heard of you.
• Branded conversion rate: 3–6%. These people came looking for you specifically.
• Non-branded conversion rate: 1–3%. Competitive queries with lower buyer commitment.
• Branded CPC: Typically 20–40% lower than non-branded. Less auction competition for your own brand terms.

If your non-branded ROAS is below 200%, you may have a search term waste problem. Irrelevant queries eating your budget will drag down non-branded performance. Review your search terms for low-intent queries and add negative keywords to block them.

If your branded ROAS is below 500%, something unusual is happening. Check whether competitors are bidding aggressively on your brand (inflating your CPCs) or if there is a landing page or pricing issue hurting conversion rates on branded traffic.

Using the Data: When High Branded Share Is a Problem

High branded share is not inherently bad. But it can signal problems that are worth investigating:

You Might Be Paying for Traffic You Would Get Organically

If someone searches for your brand name, they are probably going to find your website in organic results regardless. Your Shopping ad appears alongside your organic listing, and you pay for the click. The incremental value of that paid click is debatable. Google argues that running brand ads increases total clicks by capturing shoppers who would otherwise go to competitors. The research supporting this comes from Google's own studies, so take it with appropriate skepticism.

A practical test: if you are spending $5,000/month on branded Shopping clicks and your product analytics show strong organic visibility for branded terms, consider whether that $5,000 is delivering real incremental value or whether it would be better allocated to non-branded campaigns where you have no organic fallback.

Your Non-Branded Strategy Might Be Underinvested

A high branded share often means you are not investing enough in non-branded acquisition. Look at your campaign analytics. Are your Shopping campaigns budget-limited? If non-branded queries are losing impression share due to budget constraints while branded queries get full coverage, you are leaving growth on the table.

Your Campaigns May Not Be Structured for the Split

If you are running a single Shopping campaign (or a single PMax campaign) for all products, branded and non-branded queries compete for the same budget and bid strategy. The algorithm optimizes for overall performance, which naturally favors high-converting branded queries. Non-branded queries get starved. This is where brand segmentation in your campaign structure becomes important.

Strategies to Grow Non-Branded Traffic

Campaign Segmentation

The most effective approach is to separate branded and non-branded traffic into different campaigns. In Standard Shopping, you can do this with campaign priority settings and negative keywords:

1. Create a non-branded campaign with High priority. Add your brand terms as negative keywords. This campaign will catch non-branded queries first.
2. Create a branded campaign with Low priority. Do not add negative keywords. Branded queries that the non-branded campaign rejects (via negative keywords) will fall through to this campaign.
3. Set different bids and budgets for each. The non-branded campaign can have a more aggressive budget since that is where incremental growth comes from. The branded campaign can run leaner since those conversions are more likely to happen anyway.

This approach is well-documented in Google's campaign priority documentation and remains one of the most effective Shopping optimization tactics for advertisers who want to control the branded/non-branded mix.

Negative Keywords for Non-Branded Campaigns

If you cannot separate campaigns, you can still use negative keywords strategically. Add your brand terms as negative keywords to campaigns where you want purely non-branded traffic. This forces branded queries into your other campaigns and keeps non-branded campaigns focused on acquisition.

Be thorough with your negative keyword list. Include misspellings, abbreviations, and variations. A missed brand term variation can leak branded traffic into your non-branded campaign and distort your performance data.

Feed Optimization for Non-Branded Discovery

Non-branded queries are usually more generic: "wireless noise canceling headphones" instead of "Sony WH-1000XM5." To show up for these queries, your product titles and descriptions need to include the generic terms shoppers actually use. Review the search terms that trigger your ads and make sure your product feed attributes match the language shoppers use for non-branded discovery.

Budget Reallocation

If your branded campaigns are running well below their budget caps (because branded volume is finite), reallocate that unused budget to non-branded campaigns. This is especially relevant if non-branded campaigns are losing impression share due to budget. The goal is not to underfund branded, but to right-size it and put excess budget where it drives net-new customer acquisition.

Daily Trend Analysis

The branded/non-branded split is not static. It shifts daily and weekly in response to external events. Tracking the daily trend reveals patterns that monthly averages hide:

• Seasonality: During major sale events (Black Friday, Prime Day), non-branded queries spike as comparison shoppers flood the market. Your branded share will temporarily drop even if branded volume stays constant.
• Brand campaigns: Running a display or YouTube brand awareness campaign? Watch for a branded share increase 1–2 weeks later as new shoppers come back with brand-specific queries.
• PR and media mentions: A product review on a popular blog or an influencer mention can cause a sharp branded spike. The daily view lets you correlate the spike with the event.
• Competitor activity: If a competitor launches aggressive bidding on your brand terms, your branded CPC will rise and your branded share may drop (if the higher CPCs push some branded queries over your bid cap).
• Day-of-week patterns: Some brands see higher branded share on weekdays (returning customers) and higher non-branded share on weekends (browsing shoppers).

A daily stacked area chart showing branded vs non-branded spend (or clicks) over the last 30–90 days is one of the most useful views you can build. It tells you at a glance whether your growth is coming from brand recognition or genuine new customer acquisition. For more on daily performance tracking, see the analytics overview guide.

Setting Up Branded Keyword Tracking

Here is a practical workflow for ongoing branded vs non-branded tracking:

Step 1: Define Your Brand Terms

Build a list of 5–15 terms that signal brand awareness. Start with your brand name and expand from there. Review your search terms report for common misspellings and variations. This list should be stored somewhere accessible and version-controlled so your team knows exactly what counts as "branded."

Step 2: Pull Search Terms Data

Export your search terms report from Google Ads for the date range you want to analyze. Include metrics: impressions, clicks, cost, conversions, and conversion value. If you are using an analytics tool like SKU Analyzer, this data is already available in your dashboard.

Step 3: Classify Each Term

Apply your brand terms list against each search term. Any term containing a brand keyword (case-insensitive substring match) is branded. Everything else is non-branded. In Google Sheets, a simple =IF(SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(brand_terms, A2)))>0, "Branded", "Non-Branded") formula works for small datasets.

Step 4: Aggregate and Compare

Sum up the metrics for each bucket. Calculate the percentage splits and the ROAS for each. Compare to your previous period. Track the trend month over month.

Step 5: Automate It

Manual classification works for a one-time audit but is not sustainable. Set up automated tracking using a tool that classifies terms server-side and updates daily. This gives you the daily trend data described in the previous section and eliminates the spreadsheet maintenance burden.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The branded vs non-branded split in your Shopping campaigns is one of the most underused pieces of intelligence available to you. It costs nothing to measure, it changes how you interpret your performance data, and it directly informs campaign structure and budget allocation decisions.

Key takeaways:

• Define your brand terms first. 5–15 terms covering your brand name, misspellings, abbreviations, and proprietary product lines.
• Measure the split on spend, clicks, conversions, and ROAS. The blended ROAS hides the real story. Non-branded ROAS tells you how well you acquire new customers.
• Benchmark against your maturity. A new brand at 15% branded is healthy. An established brand at 70% branded should ask hard questions about incrementality.
• Use campaign segmentation. Separate branded and non-branded into different campaigns so you can control bids, budgets, and performance targets independently.
• Track the trend daily. Monthly averages miss the spikes and dips that correlate with brand campaigns, PR events, and competitor moves.

Start by pulling your last 30 days of search terms, building your brand terms list, and running the classification. The first time you see the split, you will understand your Shopping account differently. From there, set up ongoing tracking so the data stays fresh. For a tool that automates this entire workflow, SKU Analyzer's Search Terms page classifies every query against your defined brand terms and surfaces the daily branded vs non-branded trend automatically.